This invention relates to communications systems and, more particularly, to call centers with agents servicing customer telephone calls.
Communications systems with call centers are known. Such systems are typically used as a means of distributing telephone calls among a group of call center agents of an organization. As calls are directed to the organization from the public switch telephone network (PSTN), the communications system directs the calls to its call center agents based upon some algorithm. For example, a communications system such as an automatic call distributor (ACD), a public branch exchange (PBX), or a central office exchange service (centrex) may recognize a call target based upon an identity of an incoming trunk line and route the call accordingly.
In systems associated with service organizations, where many calls are received and handled by many call center agents, it may be important for a call center agent to have ready access to customer files. In such a situation, a database is maintained of existing customers. Customer records may be displayed on call center agent terminals as the call center agent converses with specific customers. The communications system may transfer an identifier of the customer to the database based upon an automatic number identification (ANI) facility, operating from within the PSTN. A host computer, in turn, displays the customer records via a computer terminal of the selected call center agent at the time the call is delivered.
Once a connection is made, call center agents are responsible for servicing customers. Call center agents may provide product support, take sales orders, and handle inquires. In essence, the call center agents provide the wide array of services that the companies that use them require. Thus, the effectiveness and efficiency of a call center depends on the performance of the call center agents. Call center supervisors manage call center agents and are responsible for monitoring their performance. Call center supervisors, primarily, monitor call center agents to assure the quality of customer service.
Currently, monitoring by a call center supervisor of call interactions between customers and call center agents is performed either in real time or by recording selected conversations on tape and reviewing them at a later time. In communications systems, there typically exist features that are integral to the system and that enable monitoring of call center agent performance. These capabilities are generally manual and have significant limitations. For example, if a call center supervisor decides to listen to call center agent A while call center agent B is having trouble handling a customer, then the call center supervisor has chosen the wrong call interaction to listen to. By monitoring calls randomly, the call center supervisor may not hear many of the troublesome call interactions. Further, another manual method of monitoring occurs when a call center agent requests the call center supervisor to monitor a call. This manual method of monitoring may be useful when the customer is known to be difficult, but may not be useful if the call center agent is partly responsible for the troublesome interaction. For instance, if the call center agent causes a customer to become irate, the agent most likely will not let the call center supervisor know about the troublesome call interaction. By missing such call interactions and not being able to remedy such situations, customers may become disappointed and upset with the level of service provided by the company.
The existing method of detecting difficult calls of communications systems requires the supervisor to randomly select call interactions to monitor. As a consequence, many troublesome calls may go undetected, and thereby, the quality of service provided by agents may degrade. Accordingly, a need exists for a better method of detecting troublesome call interactions of a communications system with a call center.
The present invention, accordingly, provides a system and method for automatically detecting problematic calls that overcomes or reduces the disadvantageous and limitations associated with prior agent monitoring methods and systems.
Illustrated embodiments reduce the disadvantage of randomly selecting call interactions for monitoring by providing a system and method of detecting problematic call interactions of a communications system. By monitoring call associated information, speech, and voice characteristics of the call interaction, the likelihood of detecting problematic call interactions is increased.